Contents

X HIGHLIGHTSX ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITHX CRIME & MYSTERYX FICTIONX POETRYX NON-FICTION

4 polygon | highlights

Of Stone and Sky

ISBN: 9781846975653 Price: £16.99 Publication: 01 April 2021Format: 216 x 138mm Demy Hbk Extent: 352ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853767Rights: World All Languages

MERRYN GLOVER was born in a former Rana palace in Kathmandu and grew up in Nepal, India and Pakistan. Her first major work was a stage play, The Long Way Home, which was broadcast on Radio Scotland. She has written threefurther radio plays for Radio 4 and Radio Scotland. In 2019, she was appointed the first Writer in Residence for the Cairngorms National Park.

After Highland shepherd Colvin Munro disappears, a mysterious trail of his possessions is found in the Cairngormmountains. Writing the eulogy for his memorial years later, his foundling-sister Mo seeks to discover why he vanished.Younger brother Sorley is also haunted by his absence and driven to reveal the forces that led to Colvin’s disappearance.Is their brother alive or dead?

Set on a farming estate in the upper reaches of the River Spey, Of Stone and Sky follows several generations of ashepherding family in a paean to the bonds between people, their land and way of life.

Deftly deals with the notion of bond: between people, their land and way of life in this epic novel

This story also addresses some controversial issues including land reform, environmental protection and social justice

Will appeal to fans of Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Graham Swift’s Waterland

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HELEN McCLORY is a winner of the Saltire First Book of the Year award. Her short stories have been listed for distinction in The Best of British Fantasy (2018), The Best of British and Irish Flash Fictions (2018/19), and nominated for the Pushcart prize. She is a part-time lecturer at the University of Glasgow and co-founder of writing retreat Write Toscana.

Bitterhall

ISBN: 9781846975493 Price: £9.99 Publication: 04 March 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 368ppIllustrations: n/aePub: 9781788853750Rights: EL UK & Commonwealth (exc. NA)

‘Shiny dark liquorice mind candy: nothing quite like them’- Margaret Atwood on Helen McClory’s short stories

Bitterhall is a story of obsession told between three unreliable narrators. In a darkening season in a northern city, Daniel, Órla and Tom narrate the intersections of their lives, from future-world 3D printing technology to the history of the book, to a stolen nineteenth-century diary written by a dashing gentleman who may not be entirely dead.

Bitterhall reveals the ways in which our subjectivity tampers with the notion of an objective reality, and delves into how we represent – and understand – our muddled, haunted selves.

McClory has been recognised as an incredible talent by some of the most successful and respected authors in the world

Bitterhall is set to join the canon of Scottish masterworks about duality, identity and obsession

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For Any Other TruthA D.C.I. Daley Thriller

ISBN: 9781846975714 Price: £8.99 Publication: 03 June 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 400ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853866Rights: EL UK & Commonwealth (exc. NA)

DENZIL MEYRICK worked as a police officer, distillery manager, freelance journalist, and company director. He is originally from Campbeltown in Argyll, but now lives with his wife Fiona on Loch Lomondside.

When a light aircraft crash-lands at Machrie airport, Daley and Scott rush to the scene. But it soon becomes clear thatboth occupants of the plane were dead before take-off . . .

Soon Daley and Scott find themselves battling retired terrorists and radical climate-change activists as the action spills across the North Channel to County Antrim – all under the scrutiny of the Security Services. Faced with so many questions, how will Daley uncover good from bad, right from wrong? The search is on for any other truth.

Ninth instalment in the bestselling DCI Daley series, with over 1 million copies sold worldwide

A thrilling mystery where retired terrorists, radical environmental groups and the secret service violently collide

Filled with authentic police procedure alongside Meyrick’s trademark plot twists and gritty humour

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A Rattle of BonesA Rebecca Connolly Thriller

ISBN: 9781846975639 Price: £8.99 Publication: 05 August 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 288ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853835Rights: World All Languages (exc. NA)

DOUGLAS SKELTON has written eleven true crime and Scottish criminal history books but now concentrates on fiction. His novel Thunder Bay (2019) was longlisted for the McIlvanney Award. Douglas has investigated real-life crime for Glasgow solicitors and was involved in a long-running campaign to right the famous Ice-Cream Wars miscarriage of justice.

In 1752, Seamus a’Ghlynne, James of the Glen, was executed for the murder of government man Colin Campbell. Hewas almost certainly innocent.

When banners are placed at his gravesite claiming that his namesake, James Stewart, is innocent of murder, reporter Rebecca Connolly smells a story. The young Stewart has been in prison for ten years for the brutal murder of his lover, lawyer and politician Murdo Maxwell, in his Appin home. As Rebecca delves into the case, she uncovers a web of lies that spreads across the past and present.

Third book in the acclaimed Rebecca Connolly mystery series - with rights to previous books in the series sold in the US, Germany and Denmark

Set against the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, A Rattle of Bones is a tale of injustice and mystery, and the echo of the past in the present

Douglas Skelton is an accomplished non-fiction and crime writer with real investigative experience

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Six WoundsA Daniella Coulston Mystery

ISBN: 9781846975707 Price: £8.99 | Publication: 01 July 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 304ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 978178885XXXXRights: World All Languages (exc. NA)

Here, Gordon Brown is writing as MORGAN CRY. Gordon has written six crime thrillers to date, along with a number of short stories. He also helped found Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival, is a DJ on local radio (www.pulseonair.co.uk) and runs a strategic planning consultancy.

Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca where she runs her deceased mother’s bar with the help of a dysfunctional group of expats. Things are going well until a pub brawl results in a dead body being discovered in the cellar. Unfortunately, the body belongs to a prominent London gangster, and the evidence against Daniella for his murder is piling up.

But Daniella has fought hard for her new life in the sun and she’s no quitter. It is up to her to nail the real killer before she loses everything she knows and loves.

Follow up to the acclaimed sun-soaked thriller, Thirty-One Bones

A murder-mystery set in Costa Blanca with expats, crooked cops and gangsters galore

A perfect summer read for crime fans - a criminally good cocktail of sun, crime, escapism and dark humour

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The Heart Remembers

ISBN: 9781846975820 Price: £8.99 Publication: 06 May 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 304ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788854474Rights: EL UK & Commonwealth exc. NA

JAN-PHILIPP SENDKER was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. He has travelled extensively in China and Burma and has an indepth knowledge of the people and culture. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a non-fiction book about China. Global bestseller The Art of Hearing Heartbeats was his first novel.

Twelve-year-old Ko Bo Bo lives with his uncle U Ba in Kalaw, a town in Burma. An unusually perceptive child, Bo Bocan read people’s emotions in their eyes. This acute sensitivity only makes his unconventional home life more difficult.

Everything changes when Bo Bo discovers the story of his parents’ great love, which threatens to break down inthe whirlwind of political events, and of his mother’s mysterious sickness. Convinced that he can heal her and reunite their family, Bo Bo decides to set out in search of his parents.

This is the long-awaited final book in the trilogy that began with The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

A unique story of hope and love set against a backdrop of political and family turmoil Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert and Nicholas Sparks

ALSO AVAILABLE

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The Last Man in Europe

ISBN: 9781846975349 Price: £8.99 Publication: 07 January 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 256ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853170Rights: UK Only

DENNIS GLOVER grew up in Doveton, Australia, before studying at Monash University and King’s College, Cambridge,where he was awarded a PhD in history. He has worked for two decades as an academic, newspaper columnist, politicaladviser and speechwriter.

1947. In a damp, run-down farmhouse on the island of Jura, George Orwell is embarking on his greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four. This book is hislegacy – the culmination of a career spent fighting to preserve the freedoms which the wars and upheavals of thetwentieth century have threatened.

Dennis Glover explores the creation of Orwell’s final work, which for millions of readers worldwide defined the twentiethcentury. Simultaneously a captivating drama, a unique literary excavation and an unflinching portrait of a beloved writer, The Last Man in Europe will change the way you understand Nineteen Eighty-Four and George Orwell himself.

Simultaneously a captivating drama, a unique literary excavation and an unflinching portrait of a beloved writer

A page-turning read despite its chilling resonance and relevance these days

Dennis Glover’s novel explores the creation of Orwell’s final work, 1984

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1984The Jura Edition

ISBN: 9781846975769 Price: £7.99 Publication: 07 January 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 368ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853804Rights: WAL (non exclusive)

GEORGE ORWELL is one of England’s most famous writers and social commentators. He is the author of the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is also well known for his essays and journalism, particularly his works covering his travels and his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

The year is 1984 and war and revolution have left the world unrecognisable. Great Britain is ruled by the Party, led by Big Brother. Mass surveillance is everything and The Thought Police are employed to ensure that no individual thinking is allowed.

A dystopian masterpiece, 1984 is the powerful and prophetic novel that defined the twentieth century and is stillfrighteningly relevant today, more than 70 years after it was written.

The novel still sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year and is studied throughout the world

This edition has a new, specially commissioned introduction by Alex Massie

Massie’s Introduction is the first to recognise the importance that Barnhill, Orwell’s home on the Island of Jura, had on the writing of this classic

12 polygon | fiction

ISBN: 9781846975172 Price: £12.99 Publication: 04 February 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 208ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: n/aRights: EL UK & Commonwealth (exc. NA)

MALACHY TALLACK has written for the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Scottish Review of Books, Caught By the River and many other publications, online and in print. He won a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2014, the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015, and is the author of the acclaimed Sixty Degrees North.

George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and produced a steady stream of short fiction collections,starting with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969) and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetrycollections and novels.

In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we explore the author’s Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.

Published to celebrate George Mackay Brown’s centenary year in 2021

This is the first new selected short story collection

George Mackay Brown is a seminal figure in Scottish literature and was part of the Literary Renaissance in Scotland

Simple FireSelected Short Stories

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Carve the RunesSelected Poems

ISBN: 9781846975165Price: £12.99 Publication: 04 February 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 208ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: n/aRights: EL UK & Commonwealth (exc. NA)

KATHLEEN JAMIE is a poet and essayist. Her 1995 collection The Queen of Sheba won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. In 2016 Kathleen won both the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year and the overall Saltire Book of the Year for her collection The Bonniest Companie.

In this new Selected Poems, Kathleen Jamie explores the multi-faceted world of George Mackay Brown’s Orkney, thepoet’s lifelong home and inspiration. George Mackay Brown’s concerns were the ancestral world, the communalities ofwork, the fables and religious stories which he saw as underpinning mortal lives.

Brown believed from the outset thatpoets had a social role and his true task was to fulfil that role. This is not the attitude of a shrinking violet, tentativelyexploring his ‘voice’.

This is the first new selection of George Mackay Brown’s poetry for over 25 years

This collection is published to celebrate the poet’s centenary year in 2021

Chosen by Kathleen Jamie, one of the most acclaimed and successful Scottish writers of the 21st century

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To Learn the FuturePoems for Teachers

ISBN: 9781846975547 Price: £6.99 Publication: 06 May 2021Format: 148 x 110mm Pbk w/flaps Extent: 98ppIllustrations: n/aePub: n/aRights: World All Languages

LILIAS FRASER was

JANE COOPER was

KATE HENDRY was

To Learn the Future is a selection of poems that will grip at first reading – perfect if the only time you have is five minutes in a rushed lunch break. The choice of poems includes insight for days when teachers need to find extra courage, compassion and commitment, as well as celebration of the inspirational, the funny and the reflective.

With these poems to hand, for the good days and the tough moments, no teacher is ever alone.

The previous volume in this series, Tools of the Trade, has now sold over 5000 copies

Features poems by Roger McGough, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, William Letford and many more

Publishing in May in time to be the perfect graduation gift for a new generation of teachers

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Pocket PoetryPoems for Nurses & Midwives

ISBN: 9781846975875 Price: £6.99 Publication: 06 May 2021Format: 148 x 110mm Pbk w/flaps Extent: 98ppIllustrations: n/aePub: n/aRights: World All Languages

MARTI BALAAM was born in Glasgow in 1951. Between 1978 and 1982 he was editor of The New Edinburgh Review.He is the author of Invisible Country: A Journey Through Scotland and Gate Fever: Voices from a Prison. He lives inLondon and works for the Times Literary Supplement.

This book is a companion of poems intended to provide encouragement andconsolation to those on the frontline of our care sector. The poems themselves explore the meaning of nursing, midwifery and compassion in order to promote new nurses’ and midwives’ self-care and wellbeing.

The poems in this selection demonstrate the empathy and benevolence crucial to the profession, and include works on the relationship between nurse and patient, as well as the meaning and fulfilment of nursing for those who have chosen that career.

Pocket Poetry is a charming and thoughtful collection of poems to provide support, comfort and inspiration for nurses and midwives

The poems are grouped into five themes to provide resilience, compassion and well-being

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An Orkney Tapestry

ISBN: 9781846974809 Price: £8.99Publication: 04 February 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 256ppIllustrations: line drawings throughoutePub: n/aRights: World All Languages

GEORGE MACKAY BROWN was one of the twentieth century’s most distinguished and original writers. His lifelonginspiration and birthplace, Stromness in Orkney, moulded his view of the world, though he studied in Edinburgh and laterat Newbattle Abbey College. His novel, Beside the Ocean ofTime (1994) shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Saltire Book of the Year.

First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown’s seminal work, is a unique look at Orkneythrough the eye of a poet and a celebration of Orkney’s people, language and history.

Made available again for the first time in over 40 years, this new edition sits alongside Nan Shepherd’s The LivingMountain as an important precursor of environmental writing by the likes of Kathleen Jamie, Robert Macfarlane, Malachy Tallack and, most recently, Amy Liptrot.

Unavailable for many years, this new edition has a specially commissioned Introduction written by Kirsteen McCue and Linden Bicket

This edition reproduces Sylvia Wishart’s beautiful illustrations, commissioned for the original hardback

Published to celebrate 50 years since its first publication and also the George Mackay Brown centenary in 2021

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Talking at the GatesA Life of James Baldwin

ISBN: 9781846975660 Price: £12.99 Publication: 04 February 2021Format: 216 x 138mm Demy Pbk Extent: 320ppIllustrations: 16pp b/w plates ePub: 9781788853811Rights: UK Only

JAMES CAMPBELL was born in Glasgow in 1951. Between 1978 and 1982 he was editor of The New Edinburgh Review.He is the author of Invisible Country: A Journey Through Scotland and Gate Fever: Voices from a Prison. He lives inLondon and works for the Times Literary Supplement.

James Baldwin was born into the squalor of a Harlem tenement and transcended an early life of setbacks and racism. He was a great drinker and socialiser with wild periods of gregariousness and monastic retreats during which he wrote feverishly. By the time he died in 1987, many of his books had become modern classics.

Elegantly written, candid and original, Talking at the Gates is a comprehensive account of the life and work of a writerwho believed that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’.

The definitive biography of James Baldwin (1924–1987), one of America’s finest and most influential writers

Discusses the writer’s turbulent relationships with Norman Mailer, Richard Wright and Marlon Brando, as well as his friendship with Martin Luther King

James Campbell was a close friend of Baldwin for 10 years and is regarded as his best biographer

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The Only Gaijin in the VillageA Year Living in Rural Japan

ISBN: 9781780277394 Price: £9.99 Publication: 03 June 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 256ppIllustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788852593Rights: World All Languages

NEW IN B-FORMAT PAPERBACK

‘A gently quirky memoir’– Canberra Times

In 2016 Scottish writer Iain Maloney and his Japanese wife Minori moved to a village in rural Japan. This is the story ofhis attempt to fit in, be accepted and fulfil his duties as a member of the community, despite being the only foreigner in the village. Told with self-deprecating humour, this memoir gives a fascinating insight into a side of Japan rarely seen and affirms the positive benefits of immigration for the individual and the community.

A positive and often hilarious immigrant story which honestly describes difficulties

Will appeal to anyone interested in Japan, travelling and living abroad, teaching English as a foreign language

Previous edition sold out over 2,000 copies and received rave reviews

IAIN MALONEY is an editor and lectures on writing in Japan. He has degrees in English (Aberdeen) and Creative Writing (Glasgow) and has published three novels and a haiku collection. He reviews regularly for a number of publications including the Japan Times.

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Edinburgh’s Greatest Hits

ISBN: 9781846975325 Price: £6.99 Publication: 03 June 2021Format: 148 x 105mm A-Pbk Extent: 144ppIllustrations: n/aePub: n/aRights: World All Languages

JIM BYERS is the director of Edinburgh Music Lovers. JOHNATHAN TREW has been writing about music, culture and restaurants since the early 1990s.FIONA SHEPHERD is the chief rock and pop critic of The Scotsman, and also writes for Scotland On Sunday. ALISON STROAK is a co-director and co-founder of Glasgow Music City Tours and Edinburgh Music Tours.

Explore Edinburgh’s hidden music heritage, plus a few of its more tuneful tall tales, with this eye-opening guide of the city’s music milestones, famous gigs, infamous incidents and colourful characters.

From folk to funk, pop to punk and past to present, this collection of bite-sized stories traces the people, venues and gigs that made the city’s music scene. From Bowie to the Bay City Rollers, Edinburgh’s Greatest Hits touches on the big names as well as lifting the lid on the city’s lesser known legends.

Written by local music journalists uniquely well placed to tell this story: the people behind Edinburgh Music Lovers and Edinburgh Music Tours

The authors share decades’ worth of attending music events in the city, both as fans and journalists

Will appeal to a wide audience, from music fans to gift buyers to those interested in social history

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Just Go Down the RoadA Memoir of Trouble and Travel

ISBN: 9781846975295 Price: £16.99Publication: 03 June 2021Format: 216 x 138mm Demy Hbk Extent: 256ppIllustrations: 16pp colour plates ePub: 9781788852821Rights: WAL exc. North America

This is the riveting story of the moral and literary education of a man who was a total failure at school but went on to become a distinguished author and journalist.

Beginning with Campbell, aged 14, in a police cell in Glasgow, Just Go Down the Road charts the course of a remarkable life, filled with laughter, struggles, triumphs and friendships.

Will feature in widespread review coverage in the literary pages of the London and national media

James Campbell is the author of the highly acclamied Talking at the Gates, the biography of James Baldwin

JAMES CAMPBELL writes a weekly column in the Times Literary Supplement. His books include Invisible Country: AJourney through Scotland, Paris Interzone and This Is the Beat Generation. He lives in London.

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Scott-Land The Man Who Invented aNation

ISBN: 9781846975646 Price: £6.99Publication: 03 June 2021Format: 198 x 129mm B-Pbk Extent: 304ppIllustrations: n/aePub: 9780857900210Rights: EL UK & Commonwealth exc. NA)

STUART KELLY was raised in the Scottish Borders and studied English at Balliol College Oxford, gaining a first class degree and a Master of Studies. He was the Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday and is now a freelance critic and writer.

‘the best book on Scott, indeed, since Edwin Muir’s Scott and Scotland’ – Andrew O’Hagan

His name and image are everywhere - from Bank of Scotland fivers to the bizarre monument in Edinburgh’s citycentre.

Scott-land presumes that the reader will have only a hazy awareness of Sir Walter Scott, and, although StuartKelly will offer insights into Scott’s works and biography, this is emphatically not a conventional literary biography, nor isit a critical study.

Reissued with a striking new cover to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott

2021 will see many events and celebrations to mark the anniversary, continuing over 2 years

A Radio 4 Book of the Week when first published, and now regarded as a seminal work on Scott and his impact on the nation

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